As Ingrid flew through the portal the nose of her fighter began to twitch and the airframe began to shutter. The airspeed indicator began to wobble chaotically, and her fighter was being tossed about. With effort she was able to resume some semblance of coordinated flight. The wind seemed to be changing directions rapidly, at least near the portal. As Ingrid got farther from the portal, the wind still changed directions but not as often.

A bright turquoise light appeared in the mirrors over Ingrid's head. She turned back to look at the portal. Three large glowing lights were arranged like a triangle around the portal, connected by a faint turquoise line of light shaped like a circle. The entire circle was rotating slowly.

Those are your targets, the little Light Elemental said.

"I wonder if I can sneak past them," Ingrid said as she eyed the approaching fighter jets with suspicion. "Maybe they will think I am one of their allies and ignore me."

No, they will have the aid of ocular Dark Elementals. They have keen eyes and they will see that you are an enemy.

"Which means that they are going to start shooting missiles at me any minute," Ingrid said.

Ingrid did her best to point the nose at the sky and gain altitude in spite of the constant struggle against the wind. Turning her neck to eye the fighter jets as she went, she noticed that they too were struggling to fly straight. However, they had noticed her and had changed directions.

The sky straight above was dark and filled with strange, distant clouds colored teal and cyan, with a hint of magenta in places. Even the moon was closer than those clouds. All along the horizon tall towers rose from flying castles. Those castles must have been flying very high, because from this vantage Ingrid could still see the underside of the eroded islands of rock that supported those castles. She checked her altimeter.

It read zero. She was at sea-level.

Indeed as she flew up and up the altimeter never budged. It barely wobbled. In fact Ingrid was expecting the airspeed to drop as she gained altitude, because the air should be thinner.

"Does this place have gravity?" Ingrid asked.

The matter and beings here are not subjected to gravity as such. The Queen of this Plane decides what the rules are. However, you and the objects you have brought with you are still subjected to the laws of physics in the general sense.

"Could I speak with the Queen? Ask her for help in closing the portals?"

Do not speak to the Queen, it is forbidden by the contract.

"What contract?"

No response.

"Why don't you answer my questions?"

You must close the portals.

Useless. Ingrid looked down at the enemy fighters. They were beginning to try and climb to reach her. An idea occurred to her. She flipped upside down and pointed her nose so that she would pass straight over the nose of the two fighters, but at a much higher altitude.

As she predicted, they began to fire missiles at her. Most likely Dark-Three missiles, tracking her soul. These missiles were tossed about in the wind, and began to lose energy as they struggled to stay straight. The air had the same density everywhere, so being at a high altitude was strictly better because the missiles were still subjected to gravity. She didn't need to drag them down to the ground where they would gain energy as they fell.

One of the fighters seemed to notice this, because the pilot did not fire any more missiles. The second fighter launched a second missile, but by then the first pair of missiles had stalled out and had stopped tracking Ingrid, flying off into the violent winds instead.

"Left-side Dark-Three" Ingrid said.

WHO SHALL I HUNT? The voice in her mind was a mix between the rasp of an old woman and the snarl of a wolf.

"Target the soul of the closer pilot."

YES YES HUNT KILL.

"Right-side Dark-Three, target the pilot in the other fighter."

WHOOOOOO

"Dark-Three missiles launch!" That is what the Formation Commander had said. It must have been the correct command, because both missiles left the rail simultaneously. They rocketed down at the two fighters. The pilot that shot the second missile tried to begin defending, but must have been in a bad position because the violent motion caused him to rotate like a top while still being flat. The effect gave Ingrid the impression of a falling leaf.

"Gods," Ingrid said. With that motion, there was no air flowing over the major control surfaces. The wings would be producing no lift. That machine was a tomb. Even if the missile completely missed, the pilot would be killed when the aircraft hit the ground.

The second pilot must have been more experienced because he managed to defend better. His motions were more nuanced and ultimately more effective. He was reading the direction of the wind and flowing with it.

The unfortunate fighter falling in a flat spin exploded as the Dark-Three missile impacted him. His fire Elemental burst into a fireball and the airplane disintegrated into large chunks of flaming metal. The debris left long trails of black smoke as it fell towards the sand dunes below.

Ingrid shivered. She had just killed somebody for the first time. Even though it was far away, even though it was just a faceless fighter jet in the distance, there was another person in there. Maybe a young man like Boris, or even a young woman like herself.

To kill another is never right, but in this circumstance you were not unjustified, the Light Elemental said.

The other fighter simply ran away for a little bit and the violent winds knocked the missile around too much to track him for long. Eventually the Elemental gave up and the missiles listed to the side, rudderless.

That pilot was going to be a problem. He still had at least one Dark-Three missile, and possibly some Ice-Two missiles as well. The enemy fighters might be equipped with more missiles than the fighters in the Air Navy. Ingrid wasn't sure. She was still much higher than him.

"Do you have any advice for how to beat him?" Ingrid asked.

I do not. These flying machines have the touch of Metal Elementals, but these did not exist in the time when I was awake.

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Ingrid wanted to know more about what it meant to be "awake" but she knew that the Elemental would just go silent, so she dropped the thought. She still had both Ice-Two missiles. What had the Formation Commander said? Ingrid thought she remembered him commanding the Ice-Two missiles to track enemy Fire Elementals. That would mean the engines.

She wondered if she could dismiss her Fire Elemental the instant the enemy fired their Ice-Two missiles, if they even had any. For all she knew the missiles operated on completely different mechanisms. Her training in the Air Navy had been useless. Were the Taisians even informed of enemy tactics by the Empire? Did the Empire even care to share their information?

It became clear from the way the other pilot was flying that he was much more experienced than Ingrid, and this realization snapped her out of her mental digression. He was dutifully climbing to reach Ingrid's level, and he was patient enough to not get baited into pointing his nose at her and launching a missile. Ingrid tried to climb as well, but the other pilot was slowly gaining on her.

Ingrid realized that it would be a mistake to be anywhere in front of the enemy fighter jet. The best place to be would be behind it, where the missiles would not be able to turn sharp enough to reach her. She figured it wasn't too complex of an idea: don't be in front of the thing trying to kill you. It would have been nice to have thought of it sooner, because as she tried to maneuver her fighter in relation to her enemy, the other pilot was able to predict her motions and move in relation to her as well.

This isn't working, the Light Elemental noted.

"What can I do?"

Anything except what you are currently doing is probably better than continuing.

She tried to think about what the other pilot would be thinking. He knew he was a better pilot, and he seemed to be patient enough to not lob missiles at her as he tried to get in position. He must be thinking something like: don't make any mistakes, wait for this inexperienced pilot to make mistakes and then punish those mistakes.

What could she do against that? What advantage did she have?

Wait.

"How far away can you bind crystals?" Ingrid asked.

Not too far. In your terms, maybe twenty feet away at most.

If she flew straight at the other pilot, but just barely dodged impacting him, she might be close enough to bind his crystals and then dismiss his elementals. Without an engine he would stall out and without hydraulics he could not control the plane. Then, he would likely fall out of the sky and eventually crash.

The other pilot didn't know she could do that. The other pilot would assume that she had some other purpose, something that made sense given his training and experience. What was that training and experience? How do fighter jets even fight? It was such a basic question that in retrospect could have been easily answered by Glenice.

The other pilot was not shooting at her from below. Maybe they were afraid they would run out of missiles if they kept trying. Maybe, if she went straight over his nose and then dove straight down at him, maybe he would try and loop around and shoot down at her for a guaranteed hit.

He was getting close. There wasn't much time. She let him get behind her to some degree, while still keeping an eye on his wings in the mirrors. He continued to be patient. This also wasn't working, she couldn't find an opportunity to flip over and face him.

Something needed to change.

Ingrid looked out at the wings. Her airplane continued to vibrate and shutter in the wind. The missiles on the wings were also vibrating slightly. They were just weight, just drag on the wings slowing her down. They were not going to help her against this enemy, especially since she wanted to be high above him.

"Both Ice-Two missile Elementals, target the enemy Fire Elemental and launch now! No questions!"

The missiles left the rack but did not shoot very far forward, instead they drifted off to either side and vanished from sight as they attempted to loop around. Now her wings were clean. The other pilot would know this and not fear her any longer. They would be patient. Probably.

Or Ingrid would be dead.

The extra maneuverability was small, but the loss of weight was noticeable. She ascended a little faster, and found it easier to stay away from the enemy nose. Her missiles must have given up because the trails of flame stopped tracking the enemy fighter and just kept flying straight until they flamed out.

She was far above the portal now, and the three glowing orbs of light were distant and faint. She had flown over the base of the castles in the distance, but the needle-like towers still dwarfed even her formidable altitude.

The enemy fighter tested a missile. Ingrid twisted and flew up and away. The enemy was much closer but still the missile seemed to be moving slow enough to see, and the violent winds were interfering with it. It was still tracking, however.

No time.

"Fire Elemental! I dismiss you!"

Ingrid kicked the rudder.

The missile stopped tracking her, and the violent motion of the rudder caused her to dodge it as it flew past her where she had just been. It must have still had some proximity sensor of some kind, because it exploded. Ingrid heard the sound of metal striking her aircraft. Her controls stopped working.

Leaks in the hydraulic pipes, the watery voice of her Water Elemental said in her mind.

Ingrid's hands were shaking on the controls. Involuntarily, she pissed herself again. She didn't care. There wasn't time to care, she was going to be transformed into a fireball. She looked at the enemy fighter as it flew straight at her, nose on. Almost close enough to ram right into her.

"Get ready!" Ingrid screamed. "Claim his contracts and explode his Eire Elemental!"

He rocketed by, just barely missing Ingrid's fighter by a few feet.

It is done, the Light Elemental said.

Pale blobs of light, as bright as the sun, flashed in the mirrors. It was quiet. There was only the sound of the wind violently tossing the aircraft about in the sky.

Ingrid breathed. She wasn't dead. At least not until the ground came up and hit her.

She had left the controls in a relatively neutral position after kicking the rudder. Even without hydraulics the airplane was still moving forward in a long arc towards the ground. However, Ingrid was losing airspeed. One thing she did not want to happen was for the motion of the wind to knock her into a flat spin. She summoned the Fire Elemental inside her engine and started fiddling with the throttle. Too much power, or too little, and her direction began to change. With some effort she was able to adjust the nose to counteract changes in the wind, though only slightly, just from the thrust of the engine. She wasn't spinning, but she was still flying almost straight toward the ground.

You have Metal Elementals, chimed the voice of her Light Elemental. The little glowing girl made of light pointed at one of the two boxes that contained Lightning Elementals before she dismissed them. I can sense the contract.

Oh, right. The same crystal can be used to summon either Metal or Lightning Elementals. The dark and light crystals seemed to be the only exception to this.

"Metal, I summon you! Inside the airframe!"

What metal shall I shape? a voice like grinding gears hissed in her mind.

"Can you repair the hydraulic pipes?"

Pipes, pipes, broken pipes. Metal shards everywhere. Yes, holes in the pipes. I can fix them.

The airplane continued to list onward, the controls dead. The ground was rushing at her. In the mirror Ingrid could see the long flaming trails of wreckage from her enemy.

Pressure is restored, the Water Elemental said.

Ingrid pulled hard on the controls to bring the nose up. Then she sobbed. Hot tears rushed down her face. It felt so good for the controls to work. "I could have died, over and over again today. How, how do people live like this?"

The area nearby was empty, though Ingrid could see no less than a dozen airships in a long line in the distance, black shapes silhouetted against the bright turquoise moon. Hundreds of tiny specs surrounded those shapes.

"No," Ingrid said. "No more fighting today. I will not go over that way."

You must close the portal.

"If I claim these three crystals, will this portal close?"

No response.

You must close both portals.

She ignored this comment. Instead, she flew in a large circle around the portal, inverted at the top, and claimed all three of the crystals. As she flew back through the portal to the other side, the air instantly became calm.

"Dismiss the elementals," she commanded.

The portal shimmered, then began to violently undulate and sputter with turquoise sparks. The turquoise light grew and grew, and the surface of the portal cracked. The individual shards of the portal shrank, then fizzed out. It was gone.

Off, over the town, two airships were locked in battle. The Air Navy had arrived. A fighter jet pulled up alongside Ingrid. Her heart skipped a beat. However, it had the white, blue and green paint scheme of the Taisian Air Navy. The pilot inside regarded her. She did not recognize the pilot. However, she dropped back and followed him. He seemed to be moving away from the enemy airship.

Her hometown was almost completely destroyed. Thousands of people lined the docks, frantically trying to board the armored ships. Humans packed into tiny boats.

No time to mourn. She wanted to be far away from the fighting.

The other fighter led her across the countryside. A second Air Navy airship loomed on the horizon, protected by dozens of fighters.

Safety. Probably.